A group has been formed to study how legal and regulatory policymaking affects small businesses and entrepreneurs.
The Kauffman-Rand Center for the Study of Small Business and Regulation will research the effect legislation and litigation have on small firms, as well as look for ways legislators and regulators can avoid harming small firms while still achieving policy goals.
Susan Gates, a Rand economist for nine years, is the director of the center, which is supported by the Rand Corp. and the Kauffman Foundation.
“Most policy research on business regulation and litigation looks almost exclusively at large businesses,” Gates said in a statement. “It is risky to ignore virtually 50 percent of economic activity in making policy decisions. What we’re trying to do is bring more attention to small businesses so that government officials will be better able to consider their interests in the policymaking process.”
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Studies have already begun about the history of small-business regulation, identifying less burdensome ways to address safety problems at small firms and looking at the effect of recent auditing and accounting changes on small businesses.